PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party will hold primary elections in December, but sitting MPs will have to be confirmed by their constituents.

Folllowing a meeting of the party's standing committee this week, spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said: “We are preparing for primary elections and we are going to confirm the actual dates, but they will definitely be held in December.

“First, we will hold primaries where we don't have MPs. We call these constituencies orphaned. After that we will have a confirmation election in areas where we have MPs. The aim is to weed out unpopular MPs."

Mwonzora said in an election confirmation, party structures will vote on whether they need to retain the incumbent candidates or not.

“A primary election includes one or more people while in the confirmation there is only one candidate where people will decide whether they still want that person.

"If sitting MPs are not confirmed by their constituencies, then they are given an opportunity to fight for a place in the primary elections."

The resolution is contrary to an earlier pledge by party organising secretary, Nelson Chamisa, who recently said every member would be forced to go through a primary election.

“There are no two dip-tanks in the party and there won’t be sacred cows. We will not entertain the Animal Farm kind of thing where some animals are more equal than others. In the party we are all leaders and comrades,” Chamisa was quoted as saying last month, three weeks before Wednesday’s standing committee meeting which confirmed the deal for sitting MPs, many of them accused of incompetence.

Zimbabwe is set to hold elections early next year to end a coalition government which has been in power since 2009.